Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Now your playing with Playtests!

[navar100]

In my experience of 2E games, no one casted Haste precisely because of its drawback. It might as well not have existed. It was a bad idea then. It's a bad idea now. If a spell is so powerful you need to debilitate the spellcaster to cast it, then instead don't make the spell so powerful or don't have it at all.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, there are always extreme examples where it doesn't work. But there's a wide line between magic having no drawbacks whatsoever, and spells that are useless because the drawbacks are too big. A more interesting example would be a damaging necromancy spell that also hurts the caster. It's a risk/reward tradeoff.

I have no problem with a wizard losing his spell if he's hit while casting; that adds a tactical element to gameplay.

[Bayonet Priest]

Okay, so going by the article, the 5e wizard is going to have:

• Weak but freely useable at-will abilities.
• Weaker spells in general.
• Relatively few spell slots.
• No particular skill with item creation.

Isn't this exactly how wizards work in 4e? What's a 5e wizard going to do that a 4e wizard doesn't do already?

The way I saw it was that they would be making the spells themselves more like pre-4e spells instead of 4e powers. Just changing that completely changes the spellcasting game. Weaker spells in general does not mean the same thing as 4e powers which is a much bigger sticking point when it comes to 4e than the wizard chassis.

A level 5 Wizard in 4e would have these spells to cast.
4 Cantrips
2 At-Wills
2 Encounters
2 Dailies (spellbook lets him pick between two powers each morning for each daily)
1 Utility (either daily or encounter, same spellbook thing)

The 5e Wizard could have something like
5 Cantrips (including one or more damaging spells although you could probably just not pick an attack cantrip if you wanted)
3 level 1 spells slots
2 level 2 spell slots
1 level 3 spell slot

And it will probably have the old school spells written in their spellbooks instead of the 4e version of that mechanic. And he isn't forced to prepare direct attack spells for any of them. Or he could if he wants. The ritual system is almost certainly going to be an optional module if it's included at all (can't remember if they said it is or not) so defensive and utility spells are probably back in the lists with the attack spells.

[Clawhound]

I think that they began with the obvious "win" loopholes in the current wizard.

I think that they want "choice" as a limiting factor on wizards. That is, no wizard can cast willy-nilly. That choosing when to cast a spell is an important part of begin a wizard. If casting those spells then becomes valuable, those spell can be powerful because they can't be used all the time. The game for a wizard is interesting because his choice of spells matters that much more.

Where wands and scrolls come in is when the wizard loads himself down with these resources, trivializing the idea of choosing the right spell and casting it at the right time. Wands will be replaced with at-wills, as they serve much the same function. Scrolls still expand the spell breadth of a character, but don't get around basic compromises of the class.

If the spellcasting classes have to think about what spells that they use, they will run into situations where using an at-will or letting the melee characters handle the situation more optimal.

Really, that's no different than 3rd under 8th level.

As for spells, many just need to get shuffled in level. Compare the spell to your spell list as ask "is this a challenging choice at this level?" If the spell is a no-go, it's too high, and if it's an obvious great spelll, then it's too low in level. If you go through a spell list, and find yourself conflicted as to which spell to take, and all of them are good choices, then you have the spell list sorted out right.

[2xMachina]

I don't think strong spells + penalties is a good idea. Some of the penalties, when reflected on a Fighter:

1) Fighter: I attack with move X!
Rules: Your wound from the last hit twinges. Whoops, your move failed.
2) Fighter: I attack with move Y!
Rules: Good job, now take a penalty for exhausting yourself.

Why strong balanced by risk is a bad idea:
3) Fighter: I use forbidden technique Z!
Rules: *rolls* K, now die thanks. Hah, finally. Take that, for soloing a few BBEGs with that move. Good thing such a powerful move comes together with chance for death.

[Seerow]

I disagree that they need a nerf.

Boosting the other classes up goes quite far toward shrinking the gap. And let's be honest, there will always be a gap. No class based system is 100% balanced. Wizards are a great class in 3.5, but even there, the internet over-emphasizes it, and in most actual games, it's not that big of a deal...classes like druid and cleric are more likely to accidentally dominate in my experience.

So, I think the boosts might well be entirely sufficient.

These nerfs...like reducing spell slots is a poor solution. It just changes the balance point between "wizards suck" and "wizards are awesome" to a higher level. Meh. That's not really better balance at all.

The groups that don't notice the Wizard is grossly overpowered now ALSO won't notice the Wizard being nerfed, if those nerfs come in the form of game breaking spells being removed or brought into line. Why? Because groups who don't notice the wizard is broken didn't use those spells in the first place!


As for reducing Wizard spell slots:

Spoiler

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It all depends on how it's handled. Right now Wizards progress from 2-3 spells per day all the way up to 45-60 spells per day. They hit their sweet spot around levels 5, when their spells per day are roughly 9-10 per day. Above that they have a lot of resources they simply don't have time to use. Below that they sometimes find themselves strapped for resources and slowing the party down. If they narrow the range of spell slot progression so Wizards progress from something like 6-7 spells per day starting, and progress to something like 15-20 spells per day by level 20, then they're doing all right, especially with a few at will abilities that could be used to fill in the gaps.

Alternatively it could be handled by having something like Wizards preparing a larger number of spells per day, but can only have so many readied at once. After a readied spell is used, it's expended, and the caster has to spend a few minutes readying another prepared spell in its place. In doing this you would make spells something of a hybrid encounter/daily resource. Though I honestly doubt WotC is going this route.

Well, there are always extreme examples where it doesn't work. But there's a wide line between magic having no drawbacks whatsoever, and spells that are useless because the drawbacks are too big. A more interesting example would be a damaging necromancy spell that also hurts the caster. It's a risk/reward tradeoff.

I have no problem with a wizard losing his spell if he's hit while casting; that adds a tactical element to gameplay.

Maybe even take the FFT solution: If a caster is hit while casting, they lose their evasion (AC) and/or take increased damage. When combined with their small HD, that can be very dangerous pretty quickly

[Saph]

The 5e Wizard could have something like
5 Cantrips (including one or more damaging spells although you could probably just not pick an attack cantrip if you wanted)
3 level 1 spells slots
2 level 2 spell slots
1 level 3 spell slot

And it will probably have the old school spells written in their spellbooks instead of the 4e version of that mechanic. And he isn't forced to prepare direct attack spells for any of them. Or he could if he wants. The ritual system is almost certainly going to be an optional module if it's included at all (can't remember if they said it is or not) so defensive and utility spells are probably back in the lists with the attack spells.

Makes sense. I can see that working.

If you were redoing Vancian casting, I wonder if it would work to make a character's spell slots increase in an arithmetic progression (with a higher starting point) instead of a quadratic one? Ignoring cantrips, in 3.5 a level 1 wizard has about 3 spell slots, while a level 20 wizard has 60 plus. Maybe you could reduce the high end and boost the low end - something more like 8 for the level 1 wizard and 18ish for the level 20? So you'd gain one spell slot every two levels, or something like that.

Of course, you'd still have the issue that each spell slot would get more valuable as you gained access to higher spell levels, so there'd still be a quadratic element . . . hmm. Still, it might work with tweaking.

edit: heh, semi-ninjaed by Seerow. :)

[Craft (Cheese)]

I distinctly remember something about how 5e wizards will exchange their low-level spell slots for higher ones as they level up, instead of getting new spell slots every level. Strange they didn't say anything about it in the article, but this definitely affects any discussion about how to balance the number of spell slots. Maybe something like wizards always have 10 spells per day, and can just allocate spells to higher and higher spell levels as they advance? (Also remember that spell levels go up to 10 now.) If true, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

[Clawhound]

I think that they could just shift spell slots.

3 0-level at-will
3 1st
2 2nd
1 3rd

Could get shifted to:

3 0-2nd level at-will
3 5th
2 6th
1 7th

If putting a lower level spell into a high spell slot boosts it, then you get a boost using the lower-level spell.

Past a certain level, some spells could become at-wills as their relative power is low enough compared to the challenges of that level.

[navar100]

I do hope low level spells don't become useless at high level play. The article "complained" about Grease being too good against a 15th level cleric. I see nothing wrong with Grease being an effective strategy for a 15th level wizard. Just because a spell is 1st level shouldn't mean it must suck - why bother having it.

This is presuming the system retains spellcasters having first level spell slots, even if at will. If given the spellcaster only has X spellslots but they can be any level, accepting a limit on number of highest level spell, then 1st level spells could be ignored and they being "The Suck" for high level play won't matter.

[Tyndmyr]

The groups that don't notice the Wizard is grossly overpowered now ALSO won't notice the Wizard being nerfed, if those nerfs come in the form of game breaking spells being removed or brought into line. Why? Because groups who don't notice the wizard is broken didn't use those spells in the first place!

Not necessarily. My group considers things like grease and solid fog to be quite reasonable spells. And they are good...but they really don't break the game. The game keeps playing entirely as expected.

Worse, it doesn't look like they're solely looking at fixing broken spells.

The change to how spell slots work...I'll have to look and see. That said, I'd be a bit sad if you merely got to use all high level spells and ignored all the lower ones.

[Dienekes]

I do hope low level spells don't become useless at high level play. The article "complained" about Grease being too good against a 15th level cleric. I see nothing wrong with Grease being an effective strategy for a 15th level wizard. Just because a spell is 1st level shouldn't mean it must suck - why bother having it.

This is presuming the system retains spellcasters having first level spell slots, even if at will. If given the spellcaster only has X spellslots but they can be any level, accepting a limit on number of highest level spell, then 1st level spells could be ignored and they being "The Suck" for high level play won't matter.

I sort of agree with this. In my perfect imagination of the game the Wizard would have a handful of spells but they would scale and always be useful.

However that's not what they're going for. They're going for tiered spells where a spell is useful between levels x to y and after that there is a better version of the spell.

Both of these are fine (though I prefer the top example), and can be completely evenly balanced with each other, with some numbers finagling. Personally I think the problem comes when you have tiered spells but the weak spells also scale. That's part of where the quadratic wizards bit comes from.

[Tyndmyr]

I sort of agree with this. In my perfect imagination of the game the Wizard would have a handful of spells but they would scale and always be useful.

However that's not what they're going for. They're going for tiered spells where a spell is useful between levels x to y and after that there is a better version of the spell.

Both of these are fine (though I prefer the top example), and can be completely evenly balanced with each other, with some numbers finagling. Personally I think the problem comes when you have tiered spells but the weak spells also scale. That's part of where the quadratic wizards bit comes from.

That's true...but I would like weak spells to have at least some relevance late game. It allows your char to stay thematically similar more easily. After all, in literature, how often does the caster entirely change his spell list? Usually only when there is something earth-shatteringly major happening to him...otherwise, development tends to be slow, and minor spells used early on still have occasional relevance later.

I agree that the current 3.5 system doesn't handle scaling particularly well, but I don't want to see a system that encourages a wizard that looks entirely different every few levels.

[Scots Dragon]

I included more limited drawbacks for spells that previously had fairly crippling weaknesses for a reason, actually. While overdoing it could naturally still be crippling, the reason for the backlash and other such is twofold; to keep certain spells from being spammed more or less at will due to their power (wish, for instance), and to have a thematic usage.

While a single instance of said spell won't cripple a mage too much, overdoing it could well kill them.

[Tyndmyr]

I included more limited drawbacks for spells that previously had fairly crippling weaknesses for a reason, actually. While overdoing it could naturally still be crippling, the reason for the backlash and other such is twofold; to keep certain spells from being spammed more or less at will due to their power (wish, for instance), and to have a thematic usage.

While a single instance of said spell won't cripple a mage too much, overdoing it could well kill them.

Backlash has been tried. It has two settings..."ignore it" and "nobody uses the spell".

I mean, hell, nobody even mentions downsides like the damage from Luminous Armor. It ain't gonna drop you, so why care? Cast the buff, heal, and proceed to not care.

[Kurald Galain]

Backlash has been tried. It has two settings..."ignore it" and "nobody uses the spell".

For optimizers, perhaps. But the target audience for RPGs is much broader than that.

For instance, wild surges are a form of backlash that is neither ignorable, nor does it prevent people from playing wild mages.

[Totally Guy]

Which book has the wild mage? I've never seen it before.

[Scowling Dragon]

Thieves world d20 has a pretty great casting system (whilst not perfect) everybody should check out.

[Tyndmyr]

Which book has the wild mage? I've never seen it before.

There's a complete mage one...I've even used it, but I don't recall any backlash. So...if there was one, I mentally classed it as ignorable, certainly.

[Kurald Galain]

Which book has the wild mage? I've never seen it before.

Depends on which edition you're looking for.

2E has it in its Tome Of Magic; it's a wizard that casts spells at a random casting level, with a 5% chance of something utterly random happening as backlash, drawn from a long, long table. His signature spell is Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, which is an automatic roll on the aforementioned random table, which is used mostly by The Loonie archetype; aside from that, it is as feasible in-game as any wizard.

3E has it as a prestige class in Complete Arcane. In line with 3E's philosophy that magic may not have drawbacks, it does not have a backlash mechanic, so this is not the example I was looking for.

4E has it in its PHB2; it's a sorcerer that has spells with random parameters for e.g. area of effect or element type (which can qualify as backlash if you roll too high and end up including your ally in the burst). His signature spell is the Chaos Bolt, a ranged attack that has a 50% chance of bouncing to a second target (then a 50% chance for a third, and so on) but will also target allies if there aren't enough enemies nearby.

So anyway, there clearly is a middle road between "ignorable" backlash and "unusable" backlash, it just takes good game design. Whether WOTC will pull this off is another matter entirely. Also, bear in mind that D&D is supposed to appeal to a broad audience: so it is fine if some players like backlash mechanics and other players don't (as long as they aren't forced to use that particular class).

[Draz74]

Right now Wizards progress from 2-3 spells per day all the way up to 45-60 spells per day. They hit their sweet spot around levels 5, when their spells per day are roughly 9-10 per day. Above that they have a lot of resources they simply don't have time to use. Below that they sometimes find themselves strapped for resources and slowing the party down. If they narrow the range of spell slot progression so Wizards progress from something like 6-7 spells per day starting, and progress to something like 15-20 spells per day by level 20, then they're doing all right, especially with a few at will abilities that could be used to fill in the gaps.

I agree with the principle, although as a first guess (pre-playtesting), I'd like the numbers to be slightly lower -- something like 4 spells/day at Level 1, scaling up to about 12 spells/day.

That's true...but I would like weak spells to have at least some relevance late game. It allows your char to stay thematically similar more easily. After all, in literature, how often does the caster entirely change his spell list? Usually only when there is something earth-shatteringly major happening to him...otherwise, development tends to be slow, and minor spells used early on still have occasional relevance later.

Well, the article talks about being able to prepare the same old spells in higher-level slots in order to keep them relevant. Something like a built-in Heighten Spell (or a stealth implementation of 3e psionics mechanics!).

So yeah, your Level 15 wizard will still be able to use a relevant Fireball, if that's been his signature move since Level 5 ... he'll just have to prepare it in a Level 7ish spell slot.

The question is, how effective will non-blasting spells be at having such "augmentation" rules written into their text? (And if writing such rules is as laborious as I think it's going to be, is WotC actually going to put in the work?)

[Zombimode]

The Wild Mage originates in late 2e (Tome of Magic?). One of their defining features was a flat chance of 5% that the casting of a spell would "break" into a wild surge. That means that the spell effect is replaced or altered by an effect randomly determined on a big Wild Surge table. There was a official table in the book that was relatively tame, but in my experience many groups enjoyed to build their own wild surge tables with often hilarious results ("hilarious" in this context can mean anything ranging from "silly" to "game breaking"). My own group used the Baldurs Gate 2 table for instance, with stuff like "A Demon is summoned an attacks".

Edit: ninja'd by Kurald

[Scots Dragon]

The Wild Mage originates in late 2e (Tome of Magic?).

Early 2e, actually. The Tome of Magic was released in 1991.

[Tyndmyr]

The Wild Mage originates in late 2e (Tome of Magic?). One of their defining features was a flat chance of 5% that the casting of a spell would "break" into a wild surge. That means that the spell effect is replaced or altered by an effect randomly determined on a big Wild Surge table. There was a official table in the book that was relatively tame, but in my experience many groups enjoyed to build their own wild surge tables with often hilarious results ("hilarious" in this context can mean anything ranging from "silly" to "game breaking"). My own group used the Baldurs Gate 2 table for instance, with stuff like "A Demon is summoned an attacks".

Edit: ninja'd by Kurald

This sounds like all the joys of a crit failure table brought to casting. I hate it already.

[GRM13]

It's called a wild mage for a reason. it uses wild magic, raw uncontrolled forces.

[hamlet]

I'd get rid of many of the worst spells, either get rid of metamagic feats or fix some of the more abusive misuses thereof, reintroduce casting times in the form of each spell causing the spellcaster to have an initiative penalty, and get rid of or tighten up concentration checks. In addition, I'd vaguely reintroduce many of the penalties for certain spells that 1st and 2nd edition had - some spells cause the mage to suffer fatigue and exhaustion, or even temporary ability score loss.

The wizard still feels powerful with all of this being set to 'true', and notably - you don't need to actually change the chassis of the core class with this approach, just add a slight proviso to many of the spells.

Actually, I find that some of the better checks to mage power come from AD&D. A basic chance to fail to learn a spell based on intelligence, for one. Get rid of the automatic "you gain a spell every time you level" nonsense. Memorization takes lots of time based on the level of the spells.

That kind of thing. That's what I've seen done in a couple of 3.x games and it worked out quite well to . . . not quite even out the power disparity, but at least smooth it just a bit.

[Zombimode]

This sounds like all the joys of a crit failure table brought to casting. I hate it already.

Erm, nope. Those two things are completely unrelated.
Why? Because the Wild Surge is voluntarily. The player chooses to play a Wild Mage. While crit fumbles are universal.
Fumbles are always negative (otherwise it wouldn't be a fumble), while a Wild Surge can be beneficial.
Also, critical fumbles get worse with ascending level, because more attacks mean more chances for fumbling, and the results are ever more ridiculous the higher the skill (as a general term) of the character is.

Wild surges in 2e don't appear more often the higher the level of the Wild Mage is. They also don't get worse in any sense. In fact, the higher the Wild Mage level, the higher the chances for a positive outcome.

Also, fumbles destroy verisimilitude, while wild surges don't.

[Tyndmyr]

Erm, nope. Those two things are completely unrelated.
Why? Because the Wild Surge is voluntarily. The player chooses to play a Wild Mage. While crit fumbles are universal.
Fumbles are always negative (otherwise it wouldn't be a fumble), while a Wild Surge can be beneficial.
Also, critical fumbles get worse with ascending level, because more attacks mean more chances for fumbling, and the results are ever more ridiculous the higher the skill (as a general term) of the character is.

Wild surges in 2e don't appear more often the higher the level of the Wild Mage is. They also don't get worse in any sense. In fact, the higher the Wild Mage level, the higher the chances for a positive outcome.

Also, fumbles destroy verisimilitude, while wild surges don't.

I hate crit hit tables too. In a voluntary system, like wild mage as a PRC, I will just never select a wild mage.

However, proposing this as a general wizard system for 5e? No longer nearly as voluntary. I like wizards, I'd hate to have such a terrible system coupled to my favorite class.

[Zombimode]

I hate crit hit tables too. In a voluntary system, like wild mage as a PRC, I will just never select a wild mage.

However, proposing this as a general wizard system for 5e? No longer nearly as voluntary. I like wizards, I'd hate to have such a terrible system coupled to my favorite class.

Uh, nobody suggested as much (I think)?
It was brought up here in this thread and not any D&D Next article as an example of a drawback mechanic that is neither ignorable nor make the connected abilities unusable.
The idea of spells with drawbacks was only hinted in a very vague sense in the article. So vague you could probably say its not in the article at all. The section reads:

Spellcasting Is Dangerous: This point ventures into the theoretical, since we still aren't 100% certain how we want to pursue it (so it's just the kind of thing that we want to gather feedback on in the playtest). The current proposal is that a wizard who takes damage has a chance to miscast his or her next spell. A wizard can always instead choose to do something else or use a cantrip without risk of failure. In addition, a miscast spell is never lost. The wizard can try again next round.

The idea here is to capture the feel of earlier editions, where wizards needed some amount of protection to unleash their most powerful abilities. In play, it means that a wizard has to be careful in a fight, lean on defensive magic, or otherwise stay out of harm's way.

Don't take statements out of context.

[Kurald Galain]

The idea of spells with drawbacks was only hinted in a very vague sense in the article. So vague you could probably say its not in the article at all. The section reads:

Yeah, that's a good point. The header of the section says "spellcasting is dangerous", but the section doesn't discuss the danger of spellcasting at all; it discusses spells being interrupted by enemy attacks (and I think that's good because it adds to strategy).

I seriously doubt that any WOTC designer is going to put drawbacks on anything. Both 3E and 4E have shied away from drawbacks for a long time.